Description
General description
Lipases belong to the class of hydrolases. Microbes of plant and animal basis mainly produce lipase enzyme. It can also be produced by marine organisms.
Application
Lipase from wheat germ has been used:
to prepare enzyme solution for the biodegradability test
to treat diacetates of Mep-Xylp, to generate monoacetylated xylosides
to test its efficacy in selenium speciation analysis and to determine the contribution that impurities could make to Se determination in real samples
Biochem/physiol Actions
Tri-, di-, and monoglycerides are hydrolyzed (in decreasing order of rate).
Lipases are used in detergent, food, leather, pharmaceutical and dairy industries. It has several characteristics like substrate specificity, stereospecificity and regioselectivity. It also participates in various bioconversion reactions like, hydrolysis, esterification, acidolysis and aminolysis.
Preparation Note
Prepared essentially by method of Singer, T.P., J. Biol. Chem., 174, 11 (1948).
Analysis Note
Contains acid phosphatase.
Other Notes
One unit will hydrolyze 1.0 microequivalent of fatty acid from a triglyceride in 1 hr at pH 7.4 at 37 °C. (This is equivalent to approx. 10 microliters of CO2 in 30 minutes.)